Mel Tucker joins legends in shorts
A legacy defined by Michigan’s Fab Five was brought full circle on Saturday night in Tempe, Ariz., as Colorado Buffaloes head coach Mel Tucker paced his sideline in black knee-length shorts and a black polo.
If you needed any more evidence that Tucker — at this point, regardless of the results that his tenure in Boulder brings — is a legend, you now have it. That’s it; the story is written.
Among the many things that might motivate a group of 18–22 year old young men to play a successful brand of football, I have to imagine that seeing your coach dress for an afternoon barbecue wouldn’t rank in the top ten. But when that coach appears capable of shoulder pressing the entire stadium, perhaps it’s different. “Look good, coach good,” he was heard saying to the guys during warm ups. I guess it worked. It should be said that Tempe is often hotter than Satan’s basement and most of the people who elect to live there of their own volition do so because they couldn’t get into UC-Santa Barbara or they have aspirations of becoming an adult entertainer. Despite Saturday’s game being played at a relatively cool 90-degrees, it’s safe to assume it was much hotter than that on the field. Shorts, in such a case, make perfect sense. But what if there was something more at play with Tucker’s radical sense of fashion?
What we all decide to wear when we leave the house every morning is a statement, in one way or another. Perhaps you’re the type of person who wears a suit to work every day but likes to play with different patterns on your socks or ties. Maybe you prefer denim, lots of it even. Whatever your choices may be, they say something about your intention of perception. We see it in sports all the time.
Speaking of Michigan, their current head football coach has his staff wear khakis because nothing else could possibly represent that program’s general sense of boredom more effectively. Jack Del Rio fancied a suit, then an ill-fitting leather jacket, then a suit again as a means to distract the public from talking about his coaching. It worked, for a little while at least. Jay Wright got so tired of people calling Villanova underachievers that he had the program hire a personal tailor and now he’s a two-time national champion, as well as a sex symbol. Then, of course, there’s Bob Huggins who just doesn’t seem to give a fuck anymore.
Saturday was Tucker’s moment, his magnum opus if you will. Facing down a sideline with two coaches he so publicly admires in Herm Edwards and Marvin Lewis, he chose to let his calves fly. But we’ve seen this before with Mel. Against Nebraska, with the early afternoon sun beating down on Folsom Field’s east sideline, that crazy son of a bitch wore matching charcoal pants and hoodie. My man dressed for November in the hottest home game of the year. Legend.
So the natural question now becomes, what is next? Will we see an ode to Gary Barnett’s fitted hat or the sloppy wig of Dan Hawkins? It wouldn’t surprise me to see some sort of Starter jacket situation or a parka that the school hasn’t yet made available to the rest of us. My hope is for a speedo in Salt Lake City to finish out the season. Imagine being a Ute fan, fresh off of the inevitable let-down of realizing you’re a Ute fan and the season’s expectations were obviously flushed down the toilet, and coming to the stadium only to see your opponent’s head coach in flip flops and a speedo. It’s below freezing, snowing, and Mel Tucker is rocking his head set, writing down notes in his handbook, and flexing his quads with every step. This is the logical conclusion to this adventure.
One thing is clear though: as a newly minted fashion icon, Tucker’s choices matter now more than ever. The world is watching.
